


The Language of Flowers

by ClomWrites



Series: Bly Drabbles [3]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, SO MUCH SADNESS, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClomWrites/pseuds/ClomWrites
Summary: I was going to write smut. Instead I wrote the opposite (Is there an opposite of smut?). I had also intended to write my drabbles in rough chronological order but this one post-dates the show, so, you'll just have to cope.This popped into my brain and dammit, I wrote it.I'm not sorry. Ok I'm a bit sorry.If this brings out any emotions at all in you, please feel free to add a comment, as they feed the fic writer like tears on a garden.
Series: Bly Drabbles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993213
Comments: 35
Kudos: 83





	The Language of Flowers

Every year, on a certain day, Jamie sends flowers. You think it would be easy to send flowers when you own a florist, but, as it turns out, getting flowers delivered in Paris is a pain in the arse. The very first year she does it, it takes eight phone calls at reasonable expense, a western union transfer that takes her half a day to organise, and the cost of the whiskey in the evening that she uses to get over it. But she gets it done. 

She knows the language of flowers well, and if she’d been putting the selection together herself then she’d definitely have done a better job, but she doesn’t speak French and as it turns out, most of the florists in Paris seem to refuse to speak English. She eventually finds one that does, and with the help of a French/English Dictionary she’d had the forethought to borrow from the library, she eventually comes up with something approximating what she wants. 

Pink Carnations, Red Carnations, some Daffodils, Forget-me-nots, Gladioli, Blue Hyacinth and a single Dark Crimson Rose. 

It’s the most abominable clash of colours yet and she can hear the poorly translated tension down the line as she, for the fourth time, confirms the order. It costs her a fucking fortune and she doesn’t care. 

They’ll be delivered tomorrow, with the same card, the one that just says “I light this candle for you.” 

As the years go, she does change the flowers around a little, as there’s more to select and as the florist in Paris gets to know her. By the fourth year, he calls her “The English in America” and is actually nice. As the years go by, every year, she sends flowers. 

On the same day, every year. Not a birthday, and not the anniversary of a death, per-se, but just that day. 

The day that they looked down the stone length of an empty well and found a friend, a love, a sister. The day they pulled Hannah out. 

She even managed to remember to send them this year, a year she can barely remember to breathe. 

Today she has closed the shop. It has taken all of her strength, and courage, to get out of bed, shower and make herself presentable. Eventually she leaves the flat, because it’s too much to be in there, to be in that space right now, and she goes to the park where she sits on a bench and stares at a tree until her legs and butt are numb, and then she walks home again. She should eat, but she doesn’t feel like it. She should do something positive, but she doesn’t feel like it. She just feels empty. 

So when she gets to the flat and finds that there’s a young woman at the door, holding something, Jamie feels very much like turning away and running. Human interaction is not something she’s capable of right now. But the girl must hear the door open, and turns, looking down the stairs at Jamie. 

“Er, Mrs Clayton?” 

Jamie feels the pain lance through her chest like a hot knife. That name. Everytime. 

“Yes.” Her voice is oddly steady. “That’s me.” 

“Oh, I have these.” 

And then Jamie sees them, finally, in her arms. Flowers. 

“Bit odd, sending flowers to a florist,” the young girl jokes. 

“Quite,” says Jamie, now at the top of the stairs. She signs for them, and takes them, sliding a five dollar tip into the girls hand and then going into the apartment before anymore words can possibly be spoken. She doesn’t want to speak today. Not today. 

When she puts them down, she is slightly startled, because it’s a motley bunch of flowers and definitely has not been put together by a real florist, although she recognises the card of a florist across town that she doesn’t hate. 

The blue’s clash with the pinks and reds, and the daffodils are well out of place. The gladoli does nothing to bring it all together. It’s a mess, a red hot mess. Jamie loves it. She starts to sob, and sob and sob, until she’s cried so long and so hard she has nothing left inside. It’s only then that she looks at the card. 

“We light a candle for them.”


End file.
